Biography

Khayrullah Abdulkarim Abdullah was born in 1912 in the Citadel of Erbil. In 1930, he went to the Teachers' College in Baghdad, and after completing his studies, he was appointed as a teacher at the Koya Primary School. In 1937, he graduated from the Military College in Baghdad.

In 1946, he married Saliha Abdulmanaf Saeed Shikak (1932-2001). In 1947, his only daughter, named Harbiya, passed away due to the cold on the Gader bridge and was buried there. After the collapse of the Republic of Kurdistan in 1947, he returned to Iraq, was imprisoned in the Central Prison of Baghdad, and was executed there. He was proficient in Kurdish, Arabic, Turkmen, English, and Persian.

Struggle Record

Khayrullah Abdulkarim Abdullah Salim was a member of the Darkar Society in 1939, and in the same year, he joined the ranks of the Kurdish Hiwa Party. In 1945, to continue the struggle, he joined the Second Barzan Revolution and was a member of the Freedom Committee. After the collapse of the Second Barzan Revolution, he headed to Iranian Kurdistan. On August 19, 1945, the Military Court issued an order to confiscate all his movable and immovable property due to his participation in the Second Barzan Revolution (1943-1945).

In 1946, he was a founding member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party in the city of Mahabad. In the same year, in the Republic of Kurdistan, by order of the leadership, his military rank was promoted to Captain (Peshang), and he served as a commander in the Republic's army on the Qasimlo front.

In 1946, after the collapse of the Republic of Kurdistan, under the command of General Mustafa Barzani (1903-1979), he resisted the Iranian army. On April 10, 1947, he was one of the officers who, due to hardship and typhoid fever, surrendered himself to the Iraqi police on the Gader bridge. He was first taken to the city of Erbil and later transferred to the Central Prison in Baghdad, where he was imprisoned with his comrades. Previously, in 1945, a death sentence had been issued against him by the Military Court. Therefore, after his surrender, many prominent figures and people went to Baghdad and requested that the death sentence not be carried out. Initially, it was decided that he would not be executed, but in 1947, in a sham trial, the previous sentence was reimposed on him. On the morning of Thursday, June 19, 1947, he was executed in the courtyard of the Central Prison of Baghdad in front of the Kurdish prisoners, and his body was sent back to the city of Erbil. Thousands of Kurds participated in front of the prison gate in the funeral procession of his body from the Central Prison of Baghdad to the city of Erbil and he was buried in the Bish Barmagh cemetery in the Tayrawa neighborhood of Erbil, in the presence of lawyer Awni Yusuf Ahmed (1908-1988), a member of the Central Committee of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. Before being hanged, he and three of his comrades wrote a will for the people in which they reaffirmed their stance for the freedom of the homeland.

The execution of Martyr Khayrullah and his comrades had a great reaction, and the Iraqi Communist Party expressed its protest against their execution by issuing a statement. The People's Party (Hizb al-Sha'b) expressed its protest against their execution in its organ. The great Kurdish poet Piramerd wrote the poem "New Grief" for them, and Faiq Bekas also composed a poem on this occasion titled "The Kurdish Nation," which later became an anthem and was recited in the city of Sulaymaniyah. Also, most of the Kurdish officers in the ranks of the Iraqi army were saddened by his martyrdom.

In 1959, during his first visit to the city of Erbil, President Mustafa Barzani laid a wreath on the grave of Martyr Khayrullah. On June 20, 1998, in the presence of lawyer Muhsin Dizayee, the representative of President Masoud Barzani, the statue of the aforementioned was unveiled in the city of Erbil.

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